


One (1) Missing Puppy

by DestielsDestiny



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Did I mention fluff?, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Jace Wayland Deserves Nice Things, Jace Wayland Feels, Jace Wayland Needs A Hug, Kittens, M/M, Malace, Multi, POV Alec, Polyamory, Pre-Poly, Protective Alec Lightwood, Protective Magnus Bane, Short One Shot, Wingfic, very short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 08:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21223523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: In which Jace does not go missing, Magnus does not panic, Alec does not flail, kittens do not save the day, and there are certainly no wings.





	One (1) Missing Puppy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Takara_Phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takara_Phoenix/gifts).

> For the amazing Takara_Phoenix's birthday. My apologies for it being a few days late, but happy birthday!

When the war ends, they all celebrate in different ways.

Alec is appointed the new Inquisitor.

Magnus magics blue streaks into his hair.

And also suggests Idris could do with a High Warlock these days.

Isabelle asks Simon out for ice cream and a bad movie.

Jace disappears.

**

It takes them nearly eight hours to notice Jace is missing.

Alec hates himself for that, more than a little.

The wedding was beautiful. The dancing was heady and idyllic. The kissing was intoxicating.

Thus, it is hours before he looks up, glances around, and notices something is missing. _Someone. _

_Someones_.

Finding Clary’s letter is heartbreaking. Holding Magnus while he cries for the loss of his biscuit is heart wrenching.

Realizing that Jace has just as good as lost his last living sort of biological family member _again_, is something else entirely.

**

Magnus got his first cat in 1918. Ragnor found him a month after the Armistice was signed, attempting to drown the cloying memories with ever increasing quantities of alcohol.

His oldest friend had magicked away his collection of bottles, and replaced it with a mewling, squirming basket of...things.

Magnus had never previously considered the concept of _pets_. He never precisely considered it subsequently, either.

He didn’t _keep_ the kittens. He didn’t _keep_ cats, period. Not then, and not now.

He cohabited with them, if they so chose to deign his residence with their presence.

They frequently did so choose.

Hence his slightly offhand reply to Alec’s inquiry if the cats were moving with them to Idris. “Only if they want to. We haven’t discussed it yet.” _We_, referring to the cats. Clearly.

Alexander, to his credit, only blinked once. Then threw a significant glance towards a half-packed stack of boxes visible through the doorway to the guest bedroom. “Do _they_ know that?”

Magnus had begun halfheartedly packing some of the boxes to distract himself from yet another failed attempt to find his boyfriend’s elusive, stubborn, self-destructive idiot of a parabatai.

Magnus gritted his teeth yet again at the reminder, magicking packing tape onto a freshly finished box with perhaps a little _too_ much zeal.

Alec, who was equally halfheartedly wrapping a vase in bubble wrap, merely side-eyed the box. “Just be careful you don’t tape any cats up in those.” He gestured vaguely with his vase free hand towards the half-open boxes once again.

Which, now that Magnus looked closer, appeared to be _moving_.

A soft meow floated through the open doorway, followed by rustle, and then another.

Magnus set down the tape with a sigh. “I had wondered where the kittens had gotten to.” Alec’s voice was only a touch bemused as it followed Magnus’ progress towards the kittens.

“I’m sure we’ll have space for a few kittens in Idris.” Silence met the words.

Alec paused in his wrapping, listening. Not even a rustle of mischievous cats met his ears.

“Magnus?” Alec forced his breathing to remain calm and level. The war was over. Valentine and Jonathan were dead. It was _over_. They were all alive. It was _okay_.

“Magnus?” Alec paused in the doorway, taking in Magnus’ frozen back, a hand raised halfway to one of the boxes. “What is it?”

Magnus didn’t turn, merely extended a hand towards him, beckoning, even as he pitched his voice low enough to be barely audible. “Would there also be room for a puppy, do you think, Alexander?”

Alec blinked for a moment. Then another.

Nearly a full day of searching, and it was the _kittens_ who found Jace. Of course it was.

**

They don’t talk about it, precisely. About Jace going missing.

When he wakes up from his kitten and packing box nest, his parabatai does what he does best, and pretends his eyes aren't swollen from crying, and that he isn’t still swaying from a bone deep exhaustion.

Alec wants to press the issue, so badly. But he remembers where that path leads, and lets himself heed Magnus’ slight head shake, a warm hand squeezing his shoulder gently.

He settles for catching Jace’s eye for a moment, and pushing every ounce of his concern and sincerity into his words, “We’re here if you need us, Jace. We’re here.”

Jace’s voice cracks alarmingly on his reply, “I know, Alec.” The urge to wrap him in a blanket and never let go is nearly overpowering.

Alec settles for trying to make them all cookies instead. Magnus appears to be having a conference with the cats on the pros and cons of dwelling in the Shadowhunter capital city, so Alec attempts to actually bake.

Fortunately for the continued life of everyone within the apartment, shadowhunter, downworlder, and feline alike, Jace takes over the actual baking part in rather short order.

Magnus joins them as the oven dings cheerily, summoning the cookies from its depths with a casual wave of his hand. “The cats are in.” He snags a cookie and takes a bite as Jace tries not to look too hopeful about their reactions.

Alec soothes his breaking heart with a bite of molten chocolatey goodness.

Magnus virtually inhales his cookie, already reaching for another. “Alexander, the puppy is most definitely coming with us. These cookies are _sinful_.”

Jace’s grin is heartbreaking in its pure intensity.

Alec is saved from deciding between replying or crying by a wall of feathers suddenly manifesting in front of his face.

“Jace...since when have you had wings?”

They don’t get back to the packing that afternoon.

**

Jace having wings is...different.

Alec cuts wing holes in his softest hoodies.

Magnus insists on continuing to call Jace “puppy” at ever opportunity.

Jace refuses to leave the apartment.

When the time comes to leave the New York loft, they take the cats.

They also take Jace.

**

On the first anniversary of the end of the war, they all celebrate in different ways.

Izzy and Simon host a party at the New York Institute, complete with popcorn and far too many streamers.

Luke sneaks into the back of Clary’s latest gallery opening.

Aline proposes to Helen under the stars.

Magnus magics the blue streaks in his hair into red ones.

Alec attempts to bake them a cake.

Jace jumps off the roof.

He lands on the balcony with nary a whisper of sound, looking nothing so much like a superhero coming in to land, wings sleek and windswept and sparkling gold in the early morning light.

There’s a cat perched improbably on one shoulder, at least three kittens clinging to the front of his shirt. One bats idly at the Herondale family ring, sending glimmers of light sparkling this way and that across the glass of the balcony doors.

His eyes are near solid gold with mischief and so much _life_, it takes Magnus’ breath away.

“Careful Alec, you’ll catch flies that way.” Magnus sweeps past his husband, who is still attempting to scrape his jaw off the floor of the loft, trailing a hand gently along one of Jace’s wings, gently directing it away from knocking over yet _another_ priceless vase.

“Such a mouthy puppy.” Jace’s grin is as insouciant as his eyes are wide with vulnerable _hope_.

And somehow, the words, for all that they’re a year in the making, in some ways a _lifetime_ in the making, surprise Magnus not in the least. “Guess you’ll just have to find something else to do with my mouth, then.” It is far from the crassest proposition Magnus has ever received.

It may just be the most nervous, though.

Still frozen by the balcony doors, Alexander appears to be at a loss whether to laugh with terror or cry with joy.

Magnus looks from one wide eyed parabatai to the other, from one of his shadowhunters to the other.

His hand, when it threads through Jace’s grown out hair and brushes down his scruffy cheek, is a trembling thing, giving the lightest of possible caresses.

“Jace...are you certain?” _Do you want this_? _Us_? Magnus’ eyes never leave Jace’s, gold and yellow glowing into each other.

The nod is jerky, and shaking, tears slipping down a cheek to splash against Magnus’ knuckles. But there is no hesitation in that nod, no uncertainty in those eyes.

It has been a long year. But, in some ways, in many ways, it has been a good year. The best year of their lives, really. In so, so many ways.

But none more than this moment, when Magnus extends a steady hand to the love of his life, and the other love of his life extends a shaky one of his own.

None more than the moment when the love of _their_ life takes a step, and then another, and then another, catching their hands and holding on. And not letting go.

**

On the first anniversary of the end of the war, they all celebrate in different ways.

Magnus has breakfast in bed.

Alec figures out how to make waffles.

Jace kisses his boyfriends.

And maybe, just maybe, this time, for now at least, they all finally, truly, live happily ever after.


End file.
